


All of our first times

by marya



Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: Best Friends, Gen, Growing Up, it's a friendship story, this is not a love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 23:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18109085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marya/pseuds/marya
Summary: That was the last time we had one of our first times. From that moment on, you shared your new first times with another person, and so did I. Rasmus became your Fabian and Vyvan became my Martin. But it was never the same because we were us.And no one was like us.





	All of our first times

**Author's Note:**

> I've finished this. Finally. Phew.
> 
> I've wanted to write something around Febi and Rekkles for a long time, specially after the first MSF vs. FNC match, where they hugged each other after MSF took the win. I've always thought they're still best friends and I like to imagine them hanging out and celebrating their birthdays together.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this. Sorry in advance if you clicked here waiting for some sort of love story, but all you're going to find is just... best friendship. I listed them together because it's another kind of relationship. It follows the real life timeline as best as I could. I've left out some things in favour of the plot and so on :)
> 
> Please, let me know any spelling/grammar mistakes you find (trying harder and harder to get better at English) and comment if you like this. <3

 

Our first in real life conversation was awkward and funny at the same time, do you remember, Martin? We had been chatting through League’s client for a few months, apart from the small talk at the LCS studio, and we often duoed together on ranked. I had always admired you. Always. You were the dream, something I would like to become one day. Not only you debuted at such a young age, but you always stayed on top. I looked up to you even before we met.

You were a legend.

You still are.

It was right before Christmas and we were at Starbucks. I was thinking about leaving H2K because I wasn’t feeling at my best within the team, and deep inside I was hoping you would pop the question I knew you couldn’t ask. It wasn’t on you to make me join Fnatic, not entirely, at least. You could suggest it, but for all you knew, I was just another midlaner you liked to play with. A good one —that I thought, but nothing special.

“You leaving to Sweden soon, dude?,” I said, taking a sip from my large Americano.

You drew a funny smile on your face and laughed, tilting your head back a bit. Everybody that you’ve ever met knows that whenever you do that, it means you’re unusually amused by something.

“ _Dude_?,” you scoffed. “What, you’re american now? First the coffee, now the slang?”

“Sorry. Mate? Buddy? Friend?” I shook my head, laughing as well.

“Friend is fine. Or Martin,” you stated, leaning your head against the sofa you were sitting. “Unless you’re leaving for the US. In that case, you can only call me Rekkles.”

You were Martin from then on and I was Fabian. And that was the beginning of the true meaning of the word ‘friend’ for the both of us.

 

*

 

Our first day together at Fnatic’s gaming house was exceptional. You were back from Elements and everybody gave you a warm welcome like you were some kind of rockstar. Bora couldn’t stop smiling, even said he would be in charge of the dinner that night just to celebrate you being part of the squad again. I tried to hide my excitement, to not make a big deal out of you being back, because ever since we weirdly had become friends at that Starbucks, we had hang out from time to time, specially on the weekends. We didn’t mind being on different teams and you didn’t listen to the haters calling you a traitor. Back then, Social Media wasn’t as impactful on you as it is now. You didn’t let it under your skin.

The day you went back to Fnatic was sunny, one of those early Summer days that anticipate a really warm season. The rays would draw the shade of every piece of furniture you had in your old room. Everything was exactly like you remembered, almost as if Pierre had not being there for a whole split and we were just keeping the room as some sort of memorial of you.

“It smells funny in here. Did you fart as a welcome present?”, you said, leaving your suitcase in the middle of the space and checking every corner with bright eyes.

I knew you were just taking the piss, yet I couldn’t resist myself from replying:

“I hid Steelback’s body under your bed.”

“Ah, so that’s why it was so easy to come back. Good job, Fabi. I knew I could count on you, _dude_.”

Your laughter filled the room like some sort of decoration. I sat down on your bed and crossed the legs, looking at you. I knew you didn’t feel appreciated in Elements, you had told me once, drunk from vodka and at the verge of tears. It was only then that I suggested you to come back to your real home.

I secretly also wanted us to be in the same team, but that was something I kept to myself.

 

*

 

Our first time flirting with some fans was one for the books. It started a few weeks before going into the club after a game of the LCS. This girl had been replying to all of my tweets for the past days and so I followed her and we dm’ed for a while before stepping up the game to texting. I remember myself panicking, sweating in my own room without any clue of what to reply to her that didn’t make me look like a dork.

I knocked on your door. I knew you were awake, probably reading, so I didn’t wait for your cue to enter your bedroom.

“What’s wrong?,” you asked, alarmed, probably by the looks on my face.

“Help me,” I whined, jumping into your bed and shoving my phone into your face.

You took your time to read the whole convo and, then, your cheeky smile made its appearance. You looked at me and I swear to God I never wished to murder you more than the moment you whispered:

“So you need the expert’s advice.”

I scoffed. But I really needed your help. I didn’t have this kind of relationship with anyone else in the team. You were not only my best friend, but also my counselor, my brother, my partner in crime. I knew I could tell you anything and you would move the world to help me, just as it was the other way around.

“Can I text her whatever?” You raised an eyebrow, pointing at the screen. I nodded. What else could I do? And then you just typed as fast as a lighting bolt.

The phone pinged a second later. You typed again. I could not even see what was going on, but I trusted you. Five minutes later, you threw the device onto my lap and collected your book from the bedside table.

“We have a date next Saturday.”

“ _We?”_

“She’s bringing a friend,” you said, shrugging. You didn’t even look at me but I knew I had your total attention. You always have to have the last word on everything. “You didn’t think I would leave you alone on this, right? You’re a rookie, Fabi. Both on the Rift and in real life.”

I stared at your for a few seconds before getting up with a smile.

“Fuck you, Martin.”

“Thank me in a week.”

And I did. Damn right I did.

 

*

 

Our first time being at the top came with a downfall. We had won everything. Absolutely everything. And we were ecstatic, feeling unstoppable. But in the months, in the years, that I had known you, I knew that the taller you flew, the harder the fall. That’s why I had an eye on you for the next few weeks after starting our run at Worlds in 2015, and thank God I did.

Everybody was out. I was supposed to be celebrating as well. We had just been kicked out of the tournament in the semifinals but Enrique had told everybody, both in Origen and Fnatic, to get drunk and just forget about it.

“We can’t change the score so we better toast to our run so far, no?”, he would say, with his thick Spanish accent.

Bora was the only one reluctant to go out, but somehow got dragged by Enrique and Alfonso and started drinking his disappointment away. I couldn’t find you at the bar —’Delirium Tremens’ was the name and I remember Paul saying it was the most famous place in Brussels, so I went back to the hotel. Sometimes you just stayed behind to make a phone call, or so you said, but I always waited for you and we would meet the boys a few minutes later.

We were sharing a room. It didn’t have to do with the team’s budget, or Riot’s management, but the city was so packed with the tournament that hotels’ capacity was very tight. We didn’t mind, at least I didn’t, and I was specially thankful about it when I opened the door and I heard you hyperventilating in the bathroom.

What would you have done if I hadn’t find you, Martin? If you were on your own?

I don’t want to think about it, but I remember panicking, not knowing what to do with you. You were a mess, all tears and shaking like a leaf. I knew you had your breakdowns from time to time, specially when you didn’t play as planned, but still you hadn’t had the chance to rock bottom because we were the best team in the Western.

And now we weren’t. You thought you had failed everyone, I knew it even if you didn’t tell me —babbling nonsense, grabbing my shirt as if it were a safe boat.

“Shhh,” I whispered, caressing your back in a hug. “I got you.”

“I’m sorry, Fabi,” you cried.

I half smiled. A sad gesture, really, but you couldn’t see it.

“What for?”

“You should be having fun.”

I certainly wasn’t having the time of my life there, in a tiny bathroom with you probably thinking the worst about yourself, but it could’ve been worse and we both knew it.

“So should you, _dude_.”

I felt your smile into my wet shoulder. Then you pushed me back a little bit and rubbed your eyes, slightly drying them.

“ _Dude_ , hm?”

“ _My dude,_ ” I corrected you, raising a finger.

“Unless you go to the US. Then I’ll be Rekkles.”

“But that’ll never happen.”

You nodded, trusting me. And so did I. And then everything was just right.

 

*

 

Our first New Year’s Eve together got us so drunk we couldn’t even walk straight. You invited me to Sweden, I met your family and your friends, and we went to a house party where booze was all around and people would scream words I wouldn’t understand and you wouldn’t translate because they were too harsh. But we were having a blast. It was the first time I would spend those holidays away from home and I didn’t miss my family a bit.

Maybe because you were my family as well.

It was cold, the snow covered the streets and some of your friends had slipped and told us to be careful when going back home. We didn’t listened to them, because we were _so drunk_ and it was _so dark_. You had your arm around my shoulders and I placed my hand on your waist. Keeping balance was a huge task and we had to lean on walls every two steps.

“Wait, wait, wait,” you laughed. “My phone,” pointing at your jeans, where I could see the screen lit up with a notification.

“Can’t you walk and read at the same time?” I smirked.

“Don’t want to die just yet.”

“We have to win Worlds,” I reminded.

But you were already reading the text and your smile froze like the cars under the snow. The sadness from it made me realise it wasn’t your parents telling you to be quiet when we got home.

“We have to win Worlds,” you repeated, a few seconds later, locking the phone.

Before you did so, I could read the name on the screen. Asking you if you were okay was out of discussion. I didn’t want to go into the endless loop of self pity that came along with our losses that year: Worlds, Bora… Yet you looked at me and rested your forehead on my chest. I thought you were going to cry, but all you did was saying:

“Please, don’t leave me as well.”

And I promised, with a soft smile and rubbing your back:

“I won’t.”

You had been on Fnatic for so long that the team had become your second family. You didn’t know anything else. You had tried to go to Elements after losing Enrique, Lauri and Paul, because you felt like nothing was ever the same, and had found yourself thinking that wasn’t your place either. Bora was still in the team, I had just joined the squad. Even though your little family had shattered a bit, there were important pieces that made it work for you.

But now one of them was moving to the US and I didn’t need to ask to know you felt left behind. Once again.

“Martin, I can’t feel my body. My balls are frozen,” I said after a while.

You chuckled.

“There’s another house party nearby…”

You seemed to be much better so I smiled and let you guide me through the streets of your hometown, that had become mine as well in such a short span of time.

 

*

 

Our first fight took a while to happen. But when it did, it certainly hit me harder than I thought initially. Not because you threw your words like daggers to me, instead you gave me the silent treat. For weeks.

We had left the Fnatic gaming house with disappointment for not qualifying for Worlds, and then you asked me to go to Sweden for a few days. You would come to The Netherlands to visit me as well, and everything was sorted. Kinda. I knew I couldn’t leave you by yourself for too long, so even if I didn’t feel like spending every second of the following months travelling and needed some time for myself, we arranged everything and were set up until we came back to Berlin to start training for next season.

I went to your house, we played paddle with your father, ate your mother’s food until we went into a coma and enjoyed the Swedish summer just by walking around like we couldn’t do when I spent New Year’s because it was too cold.

Then you travelled for two weeks with your mother and sister and that’s when I knew you wouldn’t be coming to my house. My parents asked about you a lot, Martin. Of course you all had met at the LCS studio a while back, but they were eager to show you around our town and treat you like part of the family. Which you were, by the way. You’ve always been. You’ll always be.

But I had made a life-changing decision and I knew you wouldn’t like it. I told the management first and asked them to keep it secret. It was hard, you know? It wasn’t as easy as you might thought back then. I loved Fnatic and, most of all, I loved playing with you and having my best friend next door, but the atmosphere after Summer split was asphyxiating and you know I’m always hungry for winning. I thought we were not going anywhere as a team and my contract was ending anyway, so I felt the urge to go with H2K.

I made it for myself, I reckon. For my career. But if you had taught me something all those years, is that you need to do what you need to do in order to improve.

Even if that means losing your best friend.

I wanted to wait to tell you until you arrived, but the guilt was eating me alive, so I went ahead and texted you, because I knew you wouldn’t answer the phone unless you were sure I was dying.

_hey, dude. i wanted you to be the first to know after management, but i will be playing with h2k next season. my contract is ending anyways so we thought it would be better if i went back to my old team_

I saw you online. And then you left me on read.

I took a deep breath and gave you a couple of days, then I texted again, asking about your flight details and telling you how excited I was to have you here. Which I was.

On read.

And then I knew you wouldn’t be coming, so I told my parents. I didn’t need to give any further explanation, they just understood and reassured I was okay in the following weeks, when you didn’t even bother to say anything. You weren’t on Social Media, either, and knowing you for so long, I was afraid you would be going down the hole once again and I wasn’t there to hold you. But then again, there’s nothing I could have done if you didn’t want me be by your side.

You gave signals of life three weeks after I told you, at the end of November.

_Thanks for letting me know. Good luck on H2K. -Rekkles._

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The next day, the news that I left Fnatic were out and I had to fake a happiness I didn’t really feel back then.

 

*

 

Our first time meeting at the LCS studio after I left was weird. You were quiet, next to an hyperactive guy I knew was called Rasmus. The one that had taken over my spot. He was trying to get your attention so hard that it was making you smile.

I walked past by, waved at you and waited for your reaction.

You told everyone you were going to the toilet before the match —Paul _knew_ the moment he saw me, because he had been part of Fnatic long enough to get to know you better than you thought, and caught me at the corridor. It was weird, it felt weird. I looked at you and I still felt the same admiration and love from the beginning, but your eyes were cold when they met mine and the guilt came back, making me feel sick.

“Good luck on the match,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

“Thanks. Congrats on your winning. Though Origen is not that strong without Paul,” you replied.

This would have led into a very bitchy conversation if things were different, but I knew you were on defensive mode, so I let it go and just nodded. I thought we had played pretty well, although it certainly wasn’t the same Origen it was with Paul, Maurice, Jesper and Alfonso.

Somebody called your name to stage and you turned your back for a second, just to see the new kid, Rasmus, smiling at you with excitement. All of sudden, you were smiling too and all I could do was pat your back and point at the backstage with my head.

“Gotta go.”

“Yeah, me too.” For a brief moment, I saw you were confused with the situation. Saw a glimpse of the old _you and me_ in your eyes. Then, you went back to your cold attitude. “See you around, Febiven.”

“Of course, _Rekkles_.”

I had a date that night with a girl who, eventually, became my girlfriend. Vyvan didn’t know what was going on with my life at the moment and that’s all I needed to fall in love with her.

No Rekkles, no Martin, no you, no us. Just me, for once.

 

*

 

Our first Skype call took almost another year to happen. Like the ones we’d had back in the days, when we were apart for a few weeks and couldn’t wait to see each other to tell them something, I stared at my monitor waiting for your name to pop up on the friends list.

I wasn’t living in Berlin, nor in Europe, for that matter. Once again, I had swapped teams and went to Clutch Gaming, to the US. This time, I hadn’t told you beforehand. It’s true that, in the following months after the start of Season 7 LCS, we started to talk a little bit more. A smile here, a good compliment there, even drinks out one time. And that was it. I moved to the other side of the world in hopes to sort everything out with myself.

Going to H2K hadn’t been the experience I was expecting, but certainly knew I didn’t want to go back to Fnatic and make the situation between you and me more awkward. Besides, you had Rasmus now. He was a rookie with a huge career ahead.

Rasmus _this_ , Rasmus _that_. The few times we had had a real talk, all you went about was him and I told you about Vyvan. That was us then. That was our relationship after just so long.

“Can you hear me?”

Your muffled voice came through the headset and I saw your pale face on my screen. I smiled, nodding.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I haven’t said anything,” I replied. And then: “Are you in Berlin?”

“Yeah. Not in the gaming house, though.” I frowned, panicking a bit because, for a moment, I thought you would have gone to another team and I hadn’t even read about it. But then you explained: “I’ve my own apartment.”

“Sweet,” I chuckled. “You’re a big boy now.”

“Unlike you. You sharing a house, right?”

As a response, I opened my arms and showed you around, where my teammates where playing League and not really paying attention to what I was doing. All it took was for you to laugh a little to break the tension between us. As if we had been living inside a bubble for the past year and a half and, all of sudden, _plop_ , we were back to reality.

We spoke for hours. You ordered your dinner while I was telling you about my new routine and ate it in front of the computer while explaining the new changes in the Fnatic roster. You sounded… the same, but different. Not sad, nor happy. I came to the conclusion that you had finally admitted that some people come and some people go and that maybe I was the one who triggered that.

In a way, I was happy to be the one that made you stronger. On the other hand, I was missing you terribly.

It was way past 3 a.m. in Berlin when I sighed and pointed at you, across the globe, fighting to stay awake.

“Go to sleep. I keep forgetting about the time difference.”

“Yeah, I should rest a little bit. We’ve got scrims pretty early,” you yawned, covering your mouth as you always do. “What time is it in Houston?”

I rolled my eyes, knowing you were going to make a joke about the location of our gaming house.

“9:45 p.m.”

“And you haven’t had dinner yet? _We have a problem_ ,” you laughed. I tried not to follow you, but couldn’t help myself and shook my head with a big grin. “Okay, good night, dude.”

My heart skipped a beat as I said:

“ _My dude_ ,” correcting you.

“I guess it should be Rekkles since you’re in the US,” you began, resting your head on your hand. “But _dude_ is fine.”

We hang up at the same time, as we always did. That wasn’t the first time for that. And then I realised that we might have found other people who felt like family to us —Rasmus for you, Vyvan for me, but we had found our balance as well.

And that was also a good first time.

Because even now, living just across the road in Berlin, we still look for each other when times are tough or when we have something good to share. You don’t have your Rasmus anymore, but I’m more than happy to keep being your brother until we die, Martin. Even if that means that we’ll fight, and grow up, and change, and move, and have different opinions sometimes.

All of our first times made us the persons we are nowadays. And now we begin to experience the times that really matter because they mean that something lasts: the second ones.


End file.
